“Everything that is possible is fair,” Harry reminded him gently. “If he is able to purchase better equipment, that is his right as an individual. How is Draco’s superior purchasing ability qualitatively different from my superior Snitch-catching ability?”

“I guess it isn’t,” Ron said crossly.

Harry laughed, cool and remote, like if a mountain were to laugh. “Someday you’ll understand, Ron.”

***

Professor Snape stood at the front of the room, sort of Jewishly. “There will be no foolish wand-waving or silly incantations in this class. As such, I don’t expect many of you to appreciate the subtle science and exact art that is potion-making. However, for those select few who possess, the predisposition…I can teach you how to bewitch the mind and ensnare the senses. I can tell you how to bottle fame, brew glory, and even put a stopper in death.”

Harry’s hand shot up.

“What is it, Potter?” Snape asked, irritated.

“What’s the value of these potions on the open market?”

“What?”

“Why are you teaching children how to make these valuable products for ourselves at a schoolteacher’s salary instead of creating products to meet modern demand?”

“You impertinent boy–“

“Conversely, what’s to stop me from selling these potions myself after you teach us how to master them?”

“I–“

“This is really more of a question for the Economics of Potion-Making, I guess. What time are econ lessons here?”

“We have no economics lessons in this school, you ridiculous boy.”

Harry Potter stood up bravely. “We do now. Come with me if you want to learn about market forces!”

The students poured into the hallway after him. They had a leader at last.

Harry’s eyes flicked momentarily over to the mirror. “So it is. This information is neither useful nor productive. Let us leave at once, to assist Hagrid in his noble enterprise of raising as many dragon eggs as he sees fit, in spite of our country’s unjust dragon-trading restrictions.”

“But it’s your parents, Harry,” Ron said. Ron never really got it.

Harry sighed. “The fundamental standard for all relationships is the trader principle, Ron.”

“I don’t understand,” Ron said.

“Of course you don’t,” said Harry affectionately. “This principle holds that we should interact with people on the basis of the values we can trade with them – values of all sorts, including common interests in art, sports or music, similar philosophical outlooks, political beliefs, sense of life, and more. Dead people have no value according to the trader principle.”

“But they gave birth to y–“

“I made myself, Ron,” Harry said firmly.

***

“Give me your wand, boy,” Voldemort hissed.

“I cannot do that. This wand represents my wealth, which is itself a tangible result of my achievements. Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think,” Harry said bravely.

Voldemort gasped.

“There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist: the fashionable non-conformist.”

Voldemort began to melt. Harry lit a cigarette, because he was the master of fire.

“The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. The minimum wage is a tax on the successful. The market will naturally dictate the minimum wage without the government stepping in to determine arbitrary limits.”

Voldemort howled.

“I’m going to sell copies of my wand at an enormous markup,” Harry said, “and you can buy one like everyone else.”

Voldemort had been defeated.

“He hated us for our freedom,” Ron said.

“No, Ron,” Harry said. “He hated us for our free markets.”

Hermione ached with desire for the both of them to master her, but nobody paid her any attention. They had empires to build.

Artwork by Amy Collier, who once saw Fabio at an airport. Fabio is an Italian model who has appeared on many classic romance novels, such as Love Me with Fury, Lovestorm, and More Than a Feeling. He is 6’3” barefoot; usually in cowboy boots.

I am Jewish and I never caught that, because I was so caught up on "the goblins are short, twisty, considered completely untrustworthy, have been persecuted by wizardkind for centuries, AND THEY HOARD GOLD? DAMNIT ROWLING NORMALLY JEWS ARE AT LEAST GIVEN THE DIGNITY OF HAVING THEIR FANTASY ANALOGUE BE DWARVES."

MISERY! WOE@ Much stronger than yours…Ayn Rand cannot have a version of Into the Woods, because Ayn Rand is the epitome of awfulness and Stephen Sondheim is the epitome of the sublime. Nevertheless, I'm trying to turn Jack into Howard Roark. “I will not chop down beanstalks for anyone but myself.” “THERE'S A GIANT TRYING TO KILL US.” “There is no point in collective action, because only the individual is – *KA-THUNK*”

Bill Stewart

Tolkien’s dwarves weren’t based on Jewish stereotypes; they were based on the dwarves in the Norse Eddas and other Teutonic sources like the Ring of the Nibelungen. Vikings like Teh Gold a lot too.

Absotively

"The dwarves of course are quite obviously – wouldn't you say that in many ways they remind you of the Jews? Their words are Semitic obviously, constructed to be Semitic."
― J.R.R. Tolkien

streever

Although, I thought her goblins were Tolkien goblins, and Tolkien had the noble dispossessed dwarves as a stand in for the Jewish peoples. I had assumed the goblins were just a copy/paste from Tolkien, without much authorial intent.

stirringsofconsciousness

I don't remember Tolkien's goblins, tbh, that's all the impact they've made on me, but I don't think so: JK Rowling pretty much avoided most of the high fantasy tropes when making her series, which is why her elves are annoying subservient little folk and there are no dwarves at all. I don't think it's that JK Rowling deliberately decided to use anti-Semitic tropes to describe Snape or the goblins: I think she used common fantasy tropes and shorthand for untrustworthy and gross, unaware that they were based off of anti-Semitic tropes.

streever

Ahh, OK–I'm not that familiar with her goblins. From the bits of movies I saw, I assumed hers were like Tolkiens, but smaller and not necessarily evil.

Tolkien goblins were really orcs; he called them goblins in the Hobbit but changed his mind later and re-named them Orcs. They seemed to, originally, be loosely based on the early goblins (mischievous, twisted, problem causing spirits), but later became basically mindless foot soldiers directed by evil beings.

Jennifer

That's the only quibble I had with this otherwise completely flawless work. Rand was Jewish. She did a lot of crazy things, but she never engaged in anti-Semitic slurs or characterizations.

MalloryOrtberg

(check the tags)

Cpt_Justice

This may come as a shock to you, but some of the MOST antisemitic crap out there COMES from Jews. So much so that there is a specific term for it: "self hater".

Ophelia

Harry's veering a little bit into dirtbag territory with that cigarette, eh?

hearyoume

I NEED DIRTBAG HARRY POTTER IMMEDIATELY

Kay

It's a metaphor.

citizenchristy

Can I get you started on Gringotts? Please.

MalloryOrtberg

SHE LITERALLY WROTE ABOUT A MYSTERIOUS SHADOWY RACE OF GOBLIN-JEWS WHO CONTROLLED ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK

deepomega

Just once I'd like a genre fiction story to have stingy, money-grubbing Vikings. All banks are run by very thinly veiled norsemen, who love axes and gold more than all else.

Sean_Sullivan

The Jotun was about four feet taller than Harry. He had a ruddy, brutal face, a voluminous blonde beard and, Harry noticed, very long fingers, and feet, and arms, and legs. His torso was also pretty long, as were the horns of his helmet, and the haft of the battle axe at his side.

* * *

"You don't understand, Harry," said Bill. "Nobody could understand unless they've lived with the Jotuns. To a Jotun, the rightful and true master of any object is the taker, not the purchaser. All objects are, in Jotun eyes, rightfully theirs for the taking"

"But if it was bought from a Jotun—"

"—then they would consider it rented by the one who had paid the money. They have, however, great difficulty with the idea of Jotun-claimed objects passing peacefully from wizard to wizard. You saw Þorsteinn Eiríksson's face when the tiara passed under his eyes. He disapproves. I believe he thinks, as do the fiercest of his kind, which is pretty much all of them, that it ought to have been returned as tribute to the Jotuns once the original purchaser died. They consider our habit of keeping Jotun objects, passing them from wizard to wizard without further wergild or armed contest, as a puny sort of sneak-thieving. It irks them, because then they have to go the trouble of conquering their treasures back."

GoatseFanfic

Would read seven phone-book-assed volumes of this, even the parts that are about wizard calvinball.

thebellewitch

Ditto, and also A++ for "wizard calvinball."

Sara

"wizard calvinball"

Best and most succinct description of quidditch.

Hth

Can I just start calling the series "A Calvinist Plays Calvinball"? Please?

alicia

I love this so much.

ofTrebond

Well, isn't that what dwarves are? They have helmets and axes and giant often-reddish beards. Very Norse. We all say they are supposed to be Jews because of the gold thing. [but also maybe there is more history/backing for that comparison, I would like to know, I just feel weird about saying any money-focused fantasy race is supposed to be Jews]

GoatseFanfic

I thought it was less the gold fever than that Tolkein made them dispossessed insular merchant-wanderers living within but sort of outside of society and specifically metaphorical jews in his extended modernity allegory, and everyone else just copied those characteristics wholesale whether they made sense in any other context or not because fantasy novels are a literary wasteland.

ofTrebond

Right, that makes sense. I feel like I have read other fantasy novels that are more "underground mining society that happens to value gold extremely highly" where it doesn't follow as much.

GoatseFanfic

To my recollection anyway the comical gold fixation is like the one now-stock dwarf trait that isn't actually all that pronounced in The Hobbit or LOTR, except in that the obscene lucre of the mines is representative of everything they've lost and how far they've fallen, so it looks like somewhere along the line the people cutting and pasting passages from Lord of the Rings to make "new" fantasy novels did figure out that the dwarves were supposed to be jews, and turning the dwarves into cartoonish greed monsters was their response!

Absotively

Not all fantasy novels!

(I'm sorry, I tried not to but I couldn't stop myself.)

alicia

This sent me down a Wikipedia rabbit hole, in which I discovered that the Niebelungen were considered to be from Burgundy. So really the dwarves are French.

Phire

Oh my god I cannot with how beautiful this is.

NotBob

I have been waiting for this and that cover design is perfect.
OK reading now.

dougery

and yet, amazingly, rand harry's not quite as insufferable as rowling harry. but that's probably because i haven't been able to stop laughing. that last line is inspired.

MrHeem

Though 'erect' may have been a useful alternative to 'build' in this context.

theharpoon

"yes I know they don't call them public schools in england" but this is America goddammit and this website is in America where the free market is the free-est and we call schools by their correct and non-misleading names

Also Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality , an AU where HP is a prodigy science whiz and questions basically everything about the HP universe. Ron is dismissed as irrelevant after the first time they meet. (because he is lost in the paradoxes of time.)

Toft

The hilarious/disturbing thing about that series is that it is intended to be an introduction to the author's rationalist-transhumanist cult. It begins with clever Harry Potter fanfic; it leads to you perusing their huge community blog about cognitive biases, logical fallacies, and probability and statistics; and then somehow it ends with you signing up for cryonic freezing and sending all the money you can spare to something called the "Singularity Institute" so that they can avert Skynet and one day revive your soul inside of a computer simulation paradise.

Liz the Lemur

Oh, oops. I definitely always assumed it was a really long joke.

Toft

Oh it is! But the author isn't in on it.

(I'd totally recommend it though. Even though it wasn't intended to be a lampoon of the type of overzealous rationalist who hangs out on r/skeptic, it might as well have been. And it is clever.)

Amaroq64

That's the best and most accurate comment about Less Wrong that I've ever seen!

Funny that I wound up here and that topic came up. Me and an ex-friend of mine got into philosophy back in, oh, about 2008, and it destroyed our friendship. I went with Ayn Rand and started studying Objectivism, and he went with Eliezer Yudkowsky and the Less Wrong crowd.

He became an insufferable, smug pseudo-intellectual and started insulting Ayn Rand and myself on a daily basis, because I was a "keeper of the truth" rather than a "truth seeker". I eventually had to block him and never talk to him again.

aaaa

There are a bunch of Objectivists on LessWrong. There's probably an irony in that sentence, I just can't see it…

Cpt_Justice

Worst part about that? I have an acquaintance/friend who is LITERALLY a rocket scientist, and he ADORES the whole series.

GoatseFanfic

Transhumanists are basically just premillennial dispensationalists but for comic books instead of the Book of Revelations, aren't they

coreyyanofsky

Actually, this particular variety of transhumanism is based on the idea that a singularity is likely but a singularity we'd consider good is very unlikely; their aim is to work on the math/design of trustworthy machine intelligences that behave as humans intend even in the absence of supervision.

The Singularity Institute changed its name to the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, with the declared "mission [of] ensur[ing] that the creation of smarter-than-human intelligence has a positive impact. We aim to make intelligent machines behave as we intend even in the absence of immediate human supervision."

Its CEO, Luke Muehlhauser, is on record as being unsure that donating to MIRI is the most effective use of one's charitable dollars.

Toft

Also, welcome to The Toast! I wasn't expecting a LessWrongite to actually show up and reply. (You were quick!) And I probably gave you a bad impression of us by calling your movement a cult. I think most LessWrongites understand why outsiders would think of them as a cult, though.

And if it is a cult, it's a cult that cares a lot about math, which endears it to my math-loving heart. Also, I have no doubt that your leaders truly believe in their mission; I don't think they are L Ron Hubbards inventing a religion to fleece rubes.

coreyyanofsky

What, just because a charismatic sexual sadist revealed universal truths to us while soliciting donations to the non-profit he started?

(…one of us, one of us…)

Adding: It's not that I was quick — it's a testimony to the brilliant humor and resulting share-worthiness of the OP.

Cpt_Justice

Probably goes a long way to explaining why I instantly hated it; I was obviously picking up on that, to some degree.

Mallory tweeted about Ayn Rand's Harry Potter a little bit ago and HPatMoR was basically the very first thing I thought of!

tubatoothpaste

I just can't see Randian Harry continuing to hang out with noted poor person Ron though.

MalloryOrtberg

oh don't worry this is part I in a series

Final Hour

"Who is Ron Galt? Sorry, I mean… Ronbledore?"

Clarkson

he has excellent contacts with the Ministry through his father & Percy, Gringotts through Bill. If the basis for all relationships is the trader principle, Ron's got some game, and is more tempting to a Randian Potter if he continues not to realize it.

davidbreslin101

Presumably Ron is useful to him in some way, and will only be dropped once he is no longer of service. The true Objectivist sees persons of all classes in terms of their utility, without foolish prejudice!

EPWordsnatcher

Once again giving thanks that Nicole's promise of "no more Harry Potter stuff" has fallen by the wayside, gloriously.

sort of Jewishly I CANNOT.

bgprincipessa

I just had the exact same thought when I read Mallory's comment that this was part I in a series. yessss

MalloryOrtberg

the worst part is that I'm the one who made her make that promise, I AM A HYPOCRITE

I feel like Harry, being a self-fulfilled independent ubermensch, should gaze into the mirror of Erised and see only his reflection looking back at him.

It'd also be the only mirror his reflection shows up in

someponysmarterthanyou

This is the cleverest thing I have read in months.

Citizen Alan

I know it was necessary for the humor element, but I wish the Snape scene could have been handled differently, since (IIRC) Snape DID want to work in private practice as a potioneer but was blackmailed by Dumbledore (a metaphor for the aged, autocratic State?) into working as an underpaid school teacher.

Also, how the hell is Harry Galt-Potter not in Slytherin?!?

Lyzz13

I think that's mostly fanon views on Snape.

Hth

Blackmailed? I thought Snape voluntarily devoted his life to the suicidal pursuit of vengeance against Voldemort for the murder of St. Lily.

Of course, I haven't read the books in a long time, and no, I will not read them again. So I'll have to believe whatever The Toast tells me is true. (This is not different from my usual life.)

davidbreslin101

"…how the hell is Harry Galt-Potter not in Slytherin?!?"
Maybe he is! And Snape is Head of Hufflepuff House because his archaic grasp of business practices make him a mediocre bumbler.

laylapalooza

"Hermione ached with desire for the both of them to master her, but nobody paid her any attention. They had empires to build."

I am dead of laughter. This is the best.

Dana

"I build myself."

So. Perfect.

Johnny Strife

That was fantastic. Loved the line about Hermione.

Tirthankar

“Give me your wand, boy,” Voldemort hissed.

“I cannot do that. This wand represents my wealth, which is itself a tangible result of my achievements. Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think,” Harry said bravely.

Voldemort promptly pummeled the annoying kid to death.

Even while dying, the dumbass didn't stop pontificating and went on and on about how using physical force against another man is the epitome of evil and the greatest form of transgression against another man's capacity to live.

Voldemort gazed amusingly at the devastated corpse of the person he had sought to kill for so many years and remarked, "Yes, I am evil, bitch!"

La fin

sosjojuror

This is amazing … and a tad bit frightening. I love it! :D

Dorian

This is absolutely brilliant! Well done.

SpoonBill

The Ayn Rand Institute's Media Center defended the Harry Potter series from weird conservative criticism. Before J. K. Rowling, "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged" were upholding the values of Romanticism in literature when it wasn't fashionable.

Muffaroo

The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged were bearing the standard of mainstream fantasy before it was fashionable.

“You can’t be serious,” she said, like a child just informed that her family was moving to the Midwest and could not, no not even if she was very good, take their cat. “You’re the most powerful vampire that ever lived. The sire of all sires. You cannot… you simply must not go on strike! Why would you leave when Sunnydale needs you most?”

Angel crossed the room before her and leaned against the desk. The room was dark and silent as he withdrew from its pack a black cigarette with a foil gold band. He lit it deftly with a match, not flinching at the sulphur or the flame as it set in relief the gaunt angles of his face. The room filled with the smell of cloves.

He spread his palms, not with condescension, and not without pity, but with the mien of a periodontist whose patient’s surgery could have been avoided through regular flossing.

“Who is Anya Harris?” he said, a plume of smoke encircling his sculpted cheekbones.

Buffy coursed across the room on her shapely showgirl legs and struck Angel’s face.

“You’re nothing but a playboy!” she cried. “I thought you could change, but you’re no different from the man you were 250 years ago. I was an irrational fool to believe otherwise.”

Angel gripped the edge of the desk behind him. After a moment, he resumed his cigarette, her handprint burning as brightly as the embers.

Buffy drew back in horror and shame. “I see it is true,” she said. “Vampirism is the root of all evil.”

“You’ve always been a friend to me,” he said, not unkindly, and not sarcastically, but like a man who is telling a woman she’s always been a friend to him. “I hope soon you`ll understand that what I`m doing is the best. For you. For Sunnydale. But most importantly for me. For you see, a man cannot know his nature until he has known the evil in it.

“If a man says vampirism is evil, it is because it has exposed the evil in himself, and doubly so since that man, borrowing from the vampire, has obtained his evil dishonorably. But if a man knows vampirism and does not know evil, then this evil you assert with such righteous recklessness is not evil at all, and the vampire is no looter — his labors are honest, neither begged, seized, nor inherited, and worthy of their aim and their effects.

“Thus the endeavor of the vampire is the most moral of all men or demons, since it is industry for industry’s own sake. Like produces like, and moral produces moral, and nowhere more than the siring of vampires is this evident — where vampires make wealth, and wealth makes wealth by the fruit of our virtue.”

Voldemort, nervously squirming, uttered to Lucius Malfoy, "What Potter is doing, I think, is not good for the country—he defies our commands for his own selfish interest! It is harmful, I believe. He should be stopped."

Malfoy responded with a hesitant nod—not quite agreeing so that he would not be held responsible for the actions of the Death Eater committee. He sank lower into his chair.

Frankie

I would love for the HP villains to be like the AS villains.

T K

"Sorcerer's objectivism" doesn't cut it quite . . .

leealvin3

This was a delicous read. More please

Jon

Waitwaitwaitwaitwait — there's a problem with the first section. Hogwarts *IS* a public school — which, in British parlance, is actually a privately-run school. So technically Rand wouldn't have any problems with public schools, just public education.

Isn't language fun?

NicoleCliffe

Read the tags, Jon.

Guest

You are fantastic. It's clear you understand both authors deeply, as this kind of humor can't be created otherwise. These posts are absolutely hilarious. Great writing.

TKJ365

Ayn Rand died in 1982. I highly doubt she is presenting this in any way, shape, or form.

Each of those speeches needed to be about sixty pages long for it to truly reflect on Ayn Rand.

Elphie

Some of the changes between the American and British versions of Harry Potter are quite odd… I remember in the first chapter of The Philosopher's Stone baby Dudley learns a new word and in the British version it's 'shan't' and on the American version it's 'won't'.